Sally Yates

Attorney General for 2 years under Obama and throughout the Trump Transition until January 30, 2017, when she was fired for disregarding the Immigration Order/Travel Ban, and replaced with Acting Attorney General Dana Boente until Jeff Sessions was confirmed.

The Yates Memo: Enemy of Corporate Offenders, 7.5 TIMES the other DOJ’s COMBINED Approriations

January 6, 2017: Sally Yates came against VW for their air pollution regulation violations, masking true levels of pollutants and lying about it, VW Agreed to pay $4.3 billion. NY TImes

The Yates Memo resulted in penalties into the DOJ coffers at 750% ROI, “corporate criminal penalties alone grew from well under $1billion dollars in 2001 to more than $15 billion in 2015 alone…and ‘$23.1 billion in civil and criminal recoveries in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2015 “represent more than seven and a half times the approximately $2.93 billion of the Justice Department’s combined appropriations for the 94 U.S. Attorneys’ offices and the main litigating divisions in that same period.'” Chamber of Commerce Speech June 9, 2016

“Who is Sally Yates? Meet the acting attorney general Trump fired for ‘betraying’ the Justice Department.” Washington Post“She also wrote a new policy two years ago that became known as “the Yates memo (9/9/2015),” which made the prosecution of individual executives — not just the corporations that employ them — a top priority for federal prosecutors…Former Justice Department spokeswoman Emily Pierce said that Yates was known in the department for voicing her opinions when she thought the administration was going in the wrong direction. Pierce said Yates was particularly vocal during a debate over government access to encrypted communications during criminal investigations, when some officials wanted to make it harder for law enforcement to access the locked information.” Washington Post

Prison Reform and Sentence Commuation

Yates oversaw a “Clemency Initiative, which has resulted in the early release of 1,176 drug offenders who were sentenced under the severe mandatory minimum laws passed in the 1980s and 1990s during the nation’s “war on drugs.” More than 400 were serving life sentences. Yates said Obama will grant “a significant” number of commutations this (Obama’s last) week, but would not specify a number. Several people close to the process said it will be several hundred. In November (2016), for instance, she created a semiautonomous “school district” for inmates in federal prison. With its own superintendent, the school district offers programs for literacy, high school diplomas and postsecondary education.” Washington Post